Invoking Law as a Basis for Identity in Cyberspace

¶1 On Sunday morning, Ms. B. dials into Prodigy, then logs on to the Prayer Line, a bulletin board storing messages from around the world. She scans a list of the most recent entries: Learning how to lean; Let me pray for you; My father; My mother’s stroke; National day of prayer; Please pray; Prayer for health; Ralph needs prayer; The father’s heart.1 These are the supplications of a group that has come to pray together on the Internet.2 Another member, Reverend R. Stoddard, observes that the Prayer Line is “on the verge of developing a new formation of the church that will be without any of the traditional accouterments of churches. We won’t have organs. We won’t have buildings. What we will have is an elec-